Posts Tagged ‘firelord’

He was the talk of the town, something of a celebrity storyteller. Packing into bars on humid nights, the audience may very well have charmed itself in advance. The way he spoke, his words sent shivers down spines. He directed his audience through emotion after emotion, love, hate, anguish, unrequited passion, dashed dreams and more. Every song was a tragedy for the effect on the more emotional members of the crowd.

Sweat glistened on every person, and tears streamed down most faces as the emotions released themselves without request down faces. Men who weren’t moved were moved to understand the connection between speaker and listener. A few women looked faint as the speaker glanced their way during his oration. He reached out and wiped away tear after tear of women in the audience making clumsy jokes that evoked wonderful smiles on each.

He drank their most watered down beer without complaint. He challenged the ruder drunks to entertaining spectacle duels in which he handily disarmed every opponent and offered his own silken kerchief to each in turn so that they could wipe of the dirt and sweat of their defeat. With an arm around former foe and random stranger, he moved through the night without a care.

The night ended as it always did. Though the village was in a permanent drought burdened desert, he always seemed to lead the rain. So each evening at the close of the bars, he would make a spectacle of summoning the waters from the heavens. The rain never fell right away. Sometime after his head landed on a pillow next to a radiantly dazed beauty, the drops would begin. The sky would open up and a flood would come straight down filling reservoirs and giving thirsty desert plants renewed hope.

Sometimes the women he bedded wouldn’t even notice when he left. Sometimes, he expressed his appreciation for their company one more time before heading on. Typically he left a poem, handwritten and original praising her beauty, encouraging her spirit, and thanking her charity, nailing the key emotions in each woman each time. With a smile on his face as he imagined her expression and the pleasant emotional tears running down her face, he pulled his barely serviceable hat down to block out the sun and made his way to the next town.

If the walk grew too hot, dark storm clouds would seem to follow him. If he grew too weary, he’d sleep in a fog. If he grew thirsty, he’d lift his travel cup and the most particularly sized downpour would fill it once more. It was a good life, the only one the Waterlord might have wished for.

The firelord was a different creature after he had met his love. The days grew shorter in all other parts of the world. Where she lived, the temperature rose considerably. Tempers flared quickly among strangers. Water rose in value. And the countryside became more desert and less lush. Wars broke out among neighboring governments as resources became harder to maintain.

These times were difficult for me, and I avoided as best I could the sight of the firelord. He was something I could never be. He burned so bright and hot that I became the cool shadow. I would envelope his love so that she would not burn so quickly from his visits. I would cling to the walls so that my home did not burn.

The other elemental lords came to him, some worried for him, and some worried for the people of the world. “Haven’t you noticed the suffering you have caused this world by your obsession?” they said. “Even the one you love suffers for this.”

The waterlady approached, adopting the most sensuous form she had ever assumed, so beautiful that she could silently lure men and lesbians to their doom simply by asking them. Her voice dripped suggestion. “There are those among us who would welcome your advance, firelord. A little steam is no bad thing.”

Nature admonished him. “My plants and animals wither under your neglect”. The lord of politics complained that with no reason left among men, there was no place for him. The moon stood back from this dispute, aloof as ever, simply watching the exchange.

The firelord held his tongue until a small island country was blown asunder as a dormant volcano suddenly raged with unprecedented frustration. The small governments, the wildlife, and any lovers that may have existed there were suddenly erased as lava covered the land and dust covered the sky.

Upon seeing this outburst, the elemental lords decended upon their fire brother and shackled him. “Until you can calm yourself, brother, we will fix you in the sky a safe distance from Earth and we will rotate the universe, so that all sides of the Earth may benefit from your warmth.”

The firelord understood their reasons and the futility of his interest in a fragile human. But as he struggled to cool his temper and so earn his freedom, the years which meant so little to him added up and she died old and warm and missed by me, even though I know she looked every morning into the heavens for something I could never provide. When the firelord remembers her passing, a new volcano rages and sunspots interfere with life on Earth. And then the firelord remembers the reason why he is fixed in the sky and struggles to calm himself.

And I did not die either. For every photon emitted from the firelord, I darken one place. The firelord’s proxy: the shadow.

There once was a mighty firelord. He burnt with the brightest flames, warming an otherwise cold planet. He burnt warmly, inciting riots and wars, kindling passions and hope. He flew across the sky during the day, and slept in the earth at night when he wasn’t stirring the emotions of man.

I was there to see the day when the firelord fell in love. He didn’t see me at first as he flew by the city. But he saw this most radiant of women as she daydreamed while looking out across the sky. On her face played everything from wisdom to a child’s fancy. She was beautiful for being in her own world and certainly thinking complex and careful things that no man should disturb recklessly.

He slowed as he arced across the sky. She saw him and smiled and the day came to a standstill. Their eyes met and that they should be together would never be denied. But as his hand reached out to make some sort of contact of greeting and understanding he noticed how her hair singed and her skin blistered and he pulled back. He looked at the sky and howled. Flame shot from his lips and for the first time shooting stars went up and out of the atmosphere.

Spying me, he came back into a collected aspect. “Very well,” he said. “You will love her in my stead. But do fear my wrath if you should make her cross or frightened. And know that she loves me through you.”

She is beautiful. Her body, mind, and everything are magnificent. Her thoughts are complex and careful and should not be recklessly disturbed. I live with her great company and endless fear.